D.A.R.E. Is Back At AP Elementary Schools

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program is back in the city's two elementary schools after it was cut by the police department.

Police Chief Matt Doughney said upon meeting with Sheriff Susan Benton it was decided to have an officer from Avon Park Middle School present the D.A.R.E. program at Avon and Park elementary schools.

With four vacancies on the police force, Doughney decided last month to reassign its only D.A.R.E. officer, Kevin Megnl, to road patrol.

But now, Avon Park Police Officer Agelic Sanchez is preparing to teach the program. The school resource officer for Avon Park Middle School attended the D.A.R.E. certification class, but she hasn't taught the program.

Sanchez watched and learned Tuesday and Thursday as Sheriff's Sgt. Monica Sauls presented the program to fifth-graders at Park Elementary School.

"Monica is awesome; She's very energetic; she's upbeat," Sanchez said Thursday. "I would just love to get a lot of pointers from her and keep on with the flow and the rapport with the students."

After watching Sauls, she will take over the program at Park Elementary and possibly at Avon Elementary at a later date, Sanchez said.

"I'm looking forward for our Avon Park officers to continue working with our own schools," she said. "We have our school resource officers here and we are in the city all the time working. It's good for the kids to see us and familiarize themselves with us and feel comfortable."

Doughney said "the schools have agreed, due to their smaller class sizes, to consolidate their classes so that we will be able to teach D.A.R.E. during the first semester of the school year."

It's hard to determine D.A.R.E.'s impact, he noted. You would have to re-contact every student who had ever been in D.A.R.E. and ask them if they have done drugs, but that's not realistic.

On the flip side, the importance of D.A.R.E. is that you have to be able to educate these kids at an early age to the dangers of drugs, Doughney said.